Fun Memory: Falling in Love with Leslie Around the Piano

(Part 2 of 5)

My parents gave Leslie and I an extremely unique wedding gift. They gave us their most prized piece of furniture – their baby-grand piano.

The first time Leslie ever came over to the house, she was sixteen years old. She walked through the front door and I pointed toward the baby-grand and said, “I want to hear you play.” For hours my family hung out in that room and listened. She would play one of her songs. I would play one of my songs. She would play one of her songs. I would play one of my songs. On and on it went. When she would play I would marvel. I could not comprehend how a sixteen-year-old girl could have that depth of spiritual life. Her lyrics were profound, her talent stunning. When she was done playing her song, she would adamantly insist that I play one of my songs. But my songs always seemed so inferior, so lacking next to hers. I was twenty-one, she was sixteen. And this is how it started.

Just to clarify, I wasn’t looking at Leslie that evening as my future wife. I wouldn’t even entertain the thought. But I do remember thinking, “God, bring to me a woman just like this, but the right age.”

I guess you could say, He answered that prayer. He waited three years and then said, “Okay, Eric, here she is.”

Leslie and I met each other through our music. Our songs shared our hearts one with the other.So, I guess it would be accurate to say that we did, indeed, fall in love around a piano. And, if you look at the Ludy family’s living room in Windsor, Colorado twenty-six years later, that very same baby-grand piano is still a central focus in our interior design, just as it was in my parent’s living room all growing up.